Writings, pics, music, arts and difficult conversations

Haunting Memories

We’ll Always Have Paris, Just Not Because of You-Know-Who

Anyone would be hard pressed to come up with a single thing Adolf Hitler did for the good of mankind. We came up with two (stay with us on this): one was not to bomb Paris, a decision he made when he toured the city 72 years ago today. The other, of course, was to die a miserable death and none too soon, a few years later. Even if the reasons why he spared the City of Lights had nothing to do with charity, it still remains as a small consolation, amid all the horrors he visited upon millions during World War II. What’s even harder to fathom though, is that besides the mass murders he ordered while in power, given a chance, he’d have committed even more evil.
For the man who, by most accounts, professed Christian beliefs, but did not hesitate to gas people to death, also inspired countless plots to destroy his enemies, who at that time were pretty much everyone who was not Nazi enough. ‘Chocolate Bombs,’ cans of plums, outfitted with hidden explosives, even poisonous throat pastilles sent around the world, were but just some of those plans, which mostly never caused the harm intended.
But if such plots may now resemble those of Monty Python movies, there was no mistake about what was behind them, and how his loyal armies were trying to top each other to gain his favors. Also, as any serial killer case worth its body count, that of Adolf H. includes several bounties put up for his assassination, and at least one passionate admirer, a woman whose copious 1930 letter to him was uncovered recently.
Finally, since the annual Gay Pride Parade sails on tomorrow, in New York City, this post may be a good reminder that, among millions of Jews, thousands of members of that so called minority were also murdered by Hitler forces, along with Roma, Gypsies, activists from the left, labor union workers, and anybody who stood on their way by principle or mere chance. We can and must never ever forget.CHOCOLATE BOMBS
In the light of the Nazi’s Final Solution plan, it’s very easy to dismiss the various other plots their were concocting, to enhance their dreams of world domination. But all proportions being kept, such schemes were coming from the same dark place which, at the time, could have only taken flight with no small help of the world’s indifference.
Their ultimate lack of success masked the ingenuity and truly effort involved in their preparation. Take the secret files collected by British intelligence during the war, which include detailed sketches of how to outfit tins of plums, throat sweets, shaving brushes, soap, lumps of coal, motor oil, Thermos flasks and pencils with small but lethal explosives.
If they had been successful, they’d have caused mass panic in the still resisting cities. But even if the documentation of their efficacy is at best sketchy, it’s safe to say that at least a few of them found their way to the backpacks of many undernourished children and innocent citizens. According to the files, there were even plans to stuff dead rats with explosives.
The possibility that the main target for these undercover bombs were children is, naturally, an assumption. What should be no doubt about is the fact that they were designed to kill people right where they ate and slept. What may have prevented the intended panic, thus, was mainly the fact that German technology to kill at the time was not that sophisticate.LETTER & POSTCARDElsa Walter‘s 80-page letter to Hitler predate his accession to power by three years. But it has some stunning insights of what his rule would be about. There are elaborated references to her ‘position with regard to the Jewish question,’ along with views about what the role of women should be in the German society.
Albeit seemingly devoid of sexual tinges, it’s obviously the writing of someone infatuated if not with the man at least with what he appeared to represent to her. Reading excerpts of it, one can’t help think about the people who married confessed convicts of violent crimes, and what such pathological fascination may be about. That lasts some two or three minutes. Then, one thinks: what an idiot.
Of course, this is all from the safety of our own high horses, pontificating about everything and everyone, as we like to believe we would have made completely different, and infinitely more humane, choices, if we were in the same situation. The reality is better expressed by the sad, teary expression of a French citizens, photographed when the Nazi troops paraded Paris for the first time.
As it had happened in Germany and in other occupied nations, as soon as a fiery underground resistance movement took root, its counterpart of betrayers and collaborationists got busy doing at times the dirty work that not even the occupying forces were willing to do. That’s certainly one of the reasons why bloody, authoritarian regimes usually last way longer anyone would expect.
Another piece of mail that preceded his election to Chancellor of Germany in 1933, was a postcard that Hitler, then a soldier fighting in World War I, sent in 1916, while recuperating from injuries away from the front. It’s a quaint, almost normal wartime correspondence, with one particular exception of note: it was addressed to another soldier of his regiment, not to his family.THE PARADE OF SHAME
France, under the command of WW I hero Marshall Petain, had been forced to sign an Armistice with Hitler the day before, after a few catastrophic weeks, when the British allies had been beaten out of the continent and the French army was decimated. Knowing his history, Hitler chose Compiegne, a forest north of Paris, as the setting for the signing of France’s capitulation.
Twenty-two years earlier, at that very same place, it had been the Germans who were forced to sign the end of the war, so the new document, which in fact gave two thirds of France to the occupying forces, had a special revenge taste for Hitler. The day after, he decided to rub it off on the face of the Parisians.
It was one of the saddest sights of the whole war, despite all the carnage and brutality of the Holocaust. Mainly because by then, most people still didn’t have idea of the immensity of the the Final Solution, and wars, by definition, already represent an inconceivable waste of human life. So the possibility of Paris be bombed and destroyed by such a ruthless dictator was, at that time, a clear and present danger.
Ironically, the only airstrikes that the city ever received happened three years later, by ally warplanes that razed a few weapon-making facilities set up by the Germans. Nothing before or ever since caused a bigger blow to the French national pride, though, than the spinal-chill inducing sight of Adolf Hitler taking a tour of Paris.

About colltales

Writer, musician, news professional. World citizen, downtown New York City. Some acting, few screen writings, endless clashes with reality. Brazilian by birth, multilingual by chance, cash strapped as usual. Agnostic but partial for great soccer. Unmoved by sunsets, sunflowers, full moons or drunken dawns. Poor vision, lower back pain and a bottomless pit for a navel. Blue, cats, left, 9, heat and outer space. Common ground need not to apply. Not accepting advice at this time.

I think he showed us one other thing: how evil people can me. Previously people were evil because they were fighting wars for land. He who had the most land, and thus the most people, was the most powerful Hitler was fighting wars based simply on a hatred of people who had conquered Germany a couple of decades earlier.

OCTOBER CUT

Tim Burton's Vincent (1982)

WILD HORSES

Audio Portrait

East Village in the 80s through my answering machine. Greeting messages, friendly voices, a recorded ecstasy and many tongues were left on tape for me to remember. Now I'm sharing it all with you. Enjoy it.

World Cup
in S.Africa.
Remember?

Zombie Paul
Walks Again

New straight-to-DVDdocumentaryrehashes an old conspiracy theory(with a little help from a "George Harrison package" postmarked after his death!).

Joyce's 'Ulysses'
as Graphic Novel

The illustration above is one of the plates of "Ulysses 'Seen,'" a high quality graphic adaptation by Robert Berry of James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses."
For those who never got around to read the long, uninterrupted, controversial June 16, 1904, conversation by Molly Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and others, that the great Irishman envisioned in Dublin, you won't have a better chance to do it.
And for those already familiar with the book form, it's another opportunity to appreciate this enduring work of literature through the eyes of a contemporary artist.
In either case, a few pints of Guinness to go along with it are absolutely optional.

EPITAPH

"Alone we are born, and die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger."

RABBIT HOLE

FALSE ALARM

Desmodus

The Artist

Father & Son

Fireball Over Midwest Skies

COLL POLL

The Numbers Are In

Voting stations are closed at this time. The final tally is 13 votes in favor of Coll getting a cellphone today and two against it.

MAY 19th IS COLL'S 11th BIRTHDAY & HE WINS!

This decision is final. Thank you all for participating. Coll's most heartfelt gratitute goes for the kind souls who voted in favor. For the two heartless hacks who were against it (you know who you are), a SWAP team graciously volunteered to pay you a visit first thing tomorrow morning. Stop by the front desk to request a waiver to present to your teacher, boss or dominatrix. Call your mother. Enroll in a charitable cause. Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen. Run to raise funds for Aids. This is our last broadcast. Please tune in for future promotions. This tape will self-destroy in five seconds. No further ado will come out of nothing.

MOTION

CLUTCH

Off-Key Note

Writings, pictures, videos, comments & more, edited by a writer, musician and world citizen living in downtown
New York City.
This follows some acting gigs, a few screenplays and endless clashes with reality.
Brazilian by birth, multilingual by chance, cash strapped as usual.
Agnostic but partial to great soccer. Unmoved by sunsets, campaign speeches, the religious pull or another sure bet.Poor vision and lower back pain.
A bottomless pit for a navel. Blue, cats, 9, left, heat and outer space.
Common ground need not to apply. Not acceptingadvice at this time.

Naked City

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Slideshow

LAST WORDS

* - "Let's do it."GARY GILMORE, executed by firing squad in Jan. 17, 1977, by the State of Utah, for murdering a model clerk. He was the last person to be executed in the U.S. in that fashion until June 18, 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was shot to death also by Utah.

Norman Mailer wrote "The Executioner's Song," which he called a "true story," based on the relationship he established with Gilmore, a confessed killer, and the state of affairs of the U.S. in the 1970s. The book doesn't shy away from the horrific facts surrounding his murderous spree, but in a way it tones them down and shifts the focus to the society's possible role as a fertile ground for such deviant behavior.

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Writer, musician, news professional. World citizen, downtown New York City. Some acting, few screen writings, endless clashes with reality. Brazilian by birth, multilingual by chance, cash strapped as usual. Agnostic but partial for great soccer. Unmoved by sunsets, sunflowers, full moons or drunken dawns. Poor vision, lower back pain and a bottomless pit for a navel. Blue, cats, left, 9, heat and outer space. Common ground need not to apply. Not accepting advice at this time.